Jacob Abelsartist • painter • watercolourist • draughtsmanAmsterdam 1803-1866 Abcoude

Jacob Abels initially painted summer landscapes but, after 1840, increasingly devoted himself to painting river and cityscapes by moonlight, inspired by the 17th-century painter Aert van der Neer. These ‘nocturnes’, also known as ‘moonlights’, aligned with his contemporaries’ romantic admiration for the mysterious, embodied in the atmosphere of night and moonlight.

Abels came from an Amsterdam merchant family. His parents sent him to boarding school in Hilversum, where he came into contact with artists such as B.C. Koekkoek and Willem Bodeman, who lived and worked there temporarily. After a study trip to Germany in 1826, Abels settled in Hilversum, where he took lessons at the drawing school of Jan van Ravenswaay and P. G. van Os. Not long thereafter, following his marriage to Van Os’s daughter, Abels moved to The Hague, where he would live and work until 1848. For the details in his landscapes, Abels enjoyed collaborating with his father-in-law P.G. van Os, who had also settled in The Hague, and his brother-in-law P.F. van Os.

With his nocturnes, Abels tried as much as possible to translate the atmosphere evoked by Van der Neer with his moonscapes in the 17th century into the 19th century, but without using the colouur black. Many of his paintings are painted in various shades of brown, applied in multiple layers. This created a certain translucency, allowing the moonlight to still play through. Another characteristic of his paintings is the high water level, in which the houses and windmills almost seem to sink. He often depicts a boat with fishermen in the center of his paintings, just as his contemporary Andries Schelfhout sometimes did in the nocturnes he produced from time to time.

From 1848, Abels settled in Haarlem. He spent the last years of his life in Arnhem and Abcoude. Besides paintings, Abels also made many watercolors and drawings. He was a member of the Royal Academy in Amsterdam and won medals at several exhibitions.